To be of service

This Thanksgiving, I want to share something deeply personal.

I've written about it before, and I'll write about it again.

It may cause some people to think I've got my priorities mixed up, others to think I've got life mixed up, and others to just not get it.

I want to say how thankful I am for the work I get to do.

I work in a helping profession. I work with people who use their brokenness to heal others. I work with data and research and building connections. I work with kids. I work with so much laughter.

And I work with a mentor who is living this life:

Most people who were alive 50 years ago today remember exactly where they were when they got that awful news that President Kennedy had been assassinated, and I mean most people all around the globe. Our international standing was very high then, and he was a supernumerary hero to a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-national world.

I was in Philadelphia recruiting for Peace Corps Volunteers at Penn, Temple and Drexel. Upon learning of the tragedy, I immediately checked in to the office in Washington, and was instructed to return as quickly as possible. Sargent Shriver, the Peace Corps Director and brother-in-law of President Kennedy, was to be in charge of the funeral, we learned a little later, and would need all the help we could give him.

At the time, my role on the Peace Corps staff was as an assistant to Bill Moyers, the Deputy Director. Bill was in Texas with the Presidential entourage, having been a protégé of Vice President Johnson. Upon returning to Washington with the new President, Bill went straight to the White House and never returned to work at the Peace Corps.

In the late 1950s, while serving on the US Army East-West German border patrol, I read a book, “The Ugly American,” a Eugene Burdick novel that depicted our countrymen who did business and vacationed abroad in a less than positive manner. I saw a lot of that, which I considered disgraceful, among our occupation forces in Europe. I came home determined to spend my life in active amelioration of that problem.

Hence, when Presidential candidate John Kennedy first spoke about the idea of the Peace Corps, I was hooked. I went to Washington on his inaugural day and stayed, eventually landing a spot at the Peace Corps after it was formed. I am very proud to be a part of the “Ask not…” generation. Sure, we were somewhat naïve in thinking we could save the world.

But, even though those of us in that band “lost our innocence” that day, the spirit of service that was born in me during those early years still lives on, albeit in a much older carcass. I am so happy to be able to continue to serve a cause larger than myself, and I am grateful to all of you for helping me do that. We do it well!

Peace

Today, as I sit down to be with my family, to give thanks through a shared meal and a day off, I want to let it be known - I work with the best people on the planet, and if I can be half of what they are at what they do, then maybe I can make a start at paying back the gift of work.